A Month of Crisis
by AmberRunnel
Summary: In which six paragons, a stowaway, and a speedster from out of time are stuck in the Vanishing Point together.
1. Chapter 1

_In which 6 paragons, a stowaway, and a refugee from out of time are stuck in the Vanishing Point together._

**Day 1**

Lex beamed down at the six paragons, waiting for a reaction. Kara stepped forward first, hands clenched and eyes alight, but J'onn stopped her with a shake of the head.

"You're not a paragon," Kara hissed. "Especially not of truth."

"According to reality, I am." Lex stepped down to face her, head tilted. "You need an intellect like mine. Now, this whole Anti-monitor business won't resolve itself, so we should get to planning."

Kara turned away, shaking her head in disbelief. "A word, everyone? Without our stowaway here."

The six paragons gathered together, Ryan hanging back looking altogether lost.

"What are we going to do with him?" Sara asked, hand drifting to her bo-staff.

"Tie him up," Kate growled. "He's only going to cause more trouble."

"Agreed," Kara muttered. "We don't want a repeat of the whole Book of Destiny problem. Too many have died already."

"Too many?" Sara muttered. "You mean everyone?"

"He does have a point, though," Barry argued. "We do need his intelligence. What is he going to do, anyway? He needs us to succeed, or else we're all dead."

"To speak of succeeding," J'onn put in, "How exactly are we going to fix this? The Monitor is dead. Pariah left us here alone."

"Time travel?" Sara suggested. "The Waverider is destroyed, but Barry can do it."

There was an edge to Barry's voice that hadn't been there before. "I can't. There are anti-matter blockades in the time stream. I can't go back to the past, and any future timelines are erased until we restore the Earths."

"_If _we restore the Earths," Lex reminded them cheerfully, inserting himself back into the conversation. He had to hold his hands up in a do-no-harm gesture as Kate glared daggers his way.

"So we're stuck in this place?" Ryan asked, and the trembling in his voice was once again a reminder that Ryan had been a completely regular civilian not two hours ago.

The section of the Vanishing point they had appeared in did not look promising: shattered lights, cracked walls, broken pipes, and a dark haze hovering like fog around them.

"We'll find a way," Kara promised, cape swirling around her ankles as she started picking her way through the debris to lead them outside. "Meanwhile, we should scout this place out. Pariah wouldn't have sent us here to starve to death-there has to be an answer."

"You recognized this place," Barry recalled, walking beside Sara as she led them towards the open expanse where they had once landed the Waverider. "You've been here before?"

"It used to be the headquarters of the Time Masters," Sara recalled, looking up at the structures still floating in the sky. "This is where Leonard died, sacrificed himself to free us from the Occulus Well."

Barry sucked in a startled breath as he realized what had ripped apart the Vanishing Point, that this was where Snart had died. "It must be hard, being back here again."

"It's not the first time back," Sara said. "The second was...complicated."

"If we don't find a way out of here, we'll have time for stories. We all have our share." Barry tensed, muscles going rigid as something flared in his senses. The group turned to look at him when he halted suddenly. "Something's wrong."

"What?" Sara demanded.

"The speed-force..." Barry started, before a blinding flash of light shone from the building structure in front of them. It was snuffed out as quickly as it had come, leaving them uneasy in the silence.

"What was that?"

Barry looked sick to his stomach, hands clenched. "Hopefully not who I thought I was."

"Danger?"

"Not the Anti-Monitor kind. Let's go."

Sara remembered this place. The computers, the lab, the frantic search for the fragment of the spear. And just as the computer monitors could be seen around the corner did she connect the dots and realize who had escaped the destruction of the timeline.

Slumped unconscious on the ground, yellow suit ripped, face cut and bleeding was Thawne.

. . .

Now all of them were in an even worse mood.

"He's not a paragon," Lex was quick to point out. "Just toss him over the edge of the Vanishing Point and problem solved."

Five glares and one timid look were sent his way. "No."

"He doesn't even look like he's alive," Ryan pointed out.

"He is," Barry said dismissively. "I recognize the wounds-they're from anti-matter. His speed healing will kick in soon enough."

"Well, now that we've established that we've got six paragons and two psychopaths, we still don't have a way off this floating rock," Kara snapped.

Already, fear was settling over them. There might not way off the Vanishing Point. Because there was nothing else that existed but the Vanishing Point.

They hadn't been rescued to save the world. They'd been sent to die in isolation.

The paragons split up to scout out.

Supergirl and J'onn could fly them to other floating sections of the Vanishing Point, while Barry searched with his superspeed. Thankfully, their comms were Waverider tech and still worked with the electronics left from the destruction of the Vanishing Point, so they left Ryan to watch Thawne with the instructions to call them the moment the speedster woke up.

The entire place had been so loaded up with time technology that some of it was still left intact for them to gather and use. Barry could bet that Ryan and Lex were going to have a field day with all of this.

Enough food and water synthesizers were found to last eight people three-hundred years. Old time-ships were floating around in the unstable gravity, most scraps of unsalvageable metal, but Lex, under the supervision of Kate, was working on building a power source, often detailing specific parts to a frustrated Barry as he struggled to find the specific components Lex needed. Kara was clearing out indoor spaces to make them more suitable, as they didn't know how long they would be stuck in the Vanishing Point.

"No 'circular tube with interlocking circles', I'm afraid." Barry sounded altogether confused. "I do, however, have, uhh - would a big pile of oddly placed jelly beans work?"

"Funny, Flash. Very funny."

"No, I'm serious. I'm literally staring at a pile of jelly-beans."

Sara's voice came over the comms. "Remember the 'it's complicated' story I told you about?"

"Firestorm's transmutation?" Barry guessed.

"First try."

"Well, I'm keeping the jelly beans."

"How aren't they all melted, though? It's been so long."

"Time doesn't flow normally here," Sara said. "We function normally, but without aging. The jelly beans are exactly as they were when we left them three years ago."

"They taste fine, too," Barry put in.

"You ate jelly beans that have been sitting in place for three years?" Kate asked, and they could almost picture her exasperated look.

Barry's hum sounded considerably guilty. "Anyways, we might be able to salvage and fix an old time ship? Time travel is our only other option."

"Granted that there's no anti-matter interference in the time stream, that's our best bet."

"Uh, guys?" Ryan's hesitant voice spoke up. "The speedster's waking up."

Any humor dropped from the conversation immediately.

. . .

Thawne stirred and sat up to find six evidently unhappy paragons staring down at him and power dampening cuffs around his wrists.

He looked around, once, before laughing dryly. "Well, well. It appears I'm late to the party."

"What are you doing here, Thawne?" Barry demanded.

"What am I doing here?" Thawne struggled to his feet. "I'm here for the same reason you are - the multiverse is gone. The time stream is blocked by anti-matter, and I wasn't erased from existence like the rest of the future's reality."

"So you ran here."

"It was either that or get stranded in space and die a horrible death."

"Should've gone with that," Lex said as he entered the room. "'Cause we're not getting out of this place for a while."

Thawne's eyes narrowed. "What's Luthor doing here?" His eyes swept over the room as he studied them all, coming to conclusions with eerie accuracy. "Where's the seventh paragon?"

Lex gave him a mocking bow. "Right here."

Thawne sighed, evidently having connected the dots. "You used the book of Destiny?"

Barry frowned, stepping forward. "How would you know that?"

"As the Spear of Destiny is sitting in my lab, the only other thing capable of rewriting reality is that book."

Sara looked sick. "You have the Spear of Destiny?"

"Still depowered, thanks to you."

Barry looked between the two with mounting confusion. "Yeah, we have a lot to catch up on."

"Well, why don't I watch over our speedster stowaway while you six trade stories?" Lex offered smoothly.

"Absolutely not," Barry snapped. "I'm not leaving the two super-intelligent psychopaths to scheme."

"I'll stay," Ryan offered. "It's not like there's any amount of explaining that would catch me up on everything."

"That's fine," Barry said, but still looked troubled. "Just don't listen to anything he says."

. . .

Ryan didn't like the way Thawne was studying him. "What?"

"You're Ryan Choi," Thawne realized.

Ryan stared, evidently startled. "How on earth would you know that?"

Thawne started observing the dampening cuffs. "I'm from the future. Stories are told."

"Not of me! I'm nobody! I've got no place in this story."

Thawne shot him a dubious look. "You're a paragon, remember? There are an infinite number of heroes in history, and the universe deemed you more important than all of them."

"Why?" Ryan burst out. "I've done nothing special. I don't deserve this. I'm no help to any of these people. It should have been Black Lightning or Ray Palmer, not me. Not me."

Thawne scoffed to himself. "Palmer...not Palmer."

"You know him?" Ryan asked.

Thawne thought nothing of the question, only muttering "Got stuck on the moon with him once. That wasn't fun."

_And tore out his heart, _he thought, then decided it wouldn't be a good idea to tell Ryan that.

The six paragons stepped back into the room before he could finish. Lex's wrists were bound and he looked considerably unhappy.

"We're tying him up too?" Ryan asked.

"Yep." Kate shoved him towards the wall. "As we get everything sorted out. I'll take over guard duty, you can join the others."

Ryan nodded, looking less timid as he left.

. . .

As the paragons were taking stock of inventory and setting up a base for their collected supplies, Eobard and Lex were playing chess with loose stones and a board drawn with dust.

Needless to say, it was quite the match, and Kate found herself drawn into watching enough to provide them with better pieces to make it easier.

She probably didn't need to, as both of them could've probably played the entire match in their heads.

"You better not be using speed thinking for this," Lex threatened.

"As if I would need to," Eobard replied, although the tone of his voice suggested intrigue. "I believe there's a draw in six."

"Agreed."

And so they cleared off the board and started again.

Eventually, Kate left to check on the others after coming to the conclusion that the two stowaways wouldn't escape. The moment she was gone, Thawne asked, "Gideon?"

His suit's hand projector flared to life. "Yes, professor?"

"Deactivate the cuffs."

She did.

Thawne discarded them and rubbed his wrists. Then, he proceeded to pull up a holographic chessboard and start a new game. "There."

"Aren't you going to untie me, too?" Lex demanded.

"If you don't try to escape."

"I'm not dull, give me some credit. There's no point, we can't take them all on by ourselves."

Thawne shrugged and untied him.

. .

"It's not looking good," Barry announced as Gideon took stock of the broken time ship Kara had carried in. "But between Gideon, Ryan, Thawne, and Lex, I think we might be able to make it work."

"And until then?" Kate asked.

"We wait and make sure that Thawne and Luthor don't enact some scheme and kill us all."

They returned to find Thawne and Lex playing chess together, both free and untied.

Barry picked up the power dampening cuffs from where they sat on a table. "Really, Thawne?"

"You only told us not to escape," Lex said cheerfully, moving a piece with a flick of his finger as he grinned at Kate. "And we're not bothering anyone, so you can leave us here."

"That's great and all," Kara said patiently as Kate considered going through on her threat to break Lex's arm, "but we have a broken time ship that needs to be fixed, and Thawne, Barry says you're the expert on time travel."

"Time travel. Not time ships." Nevertheless, Thawne got to his feet. "I'll look it over. What'd you find?"

"The ship's infrastructure is relatively intact," Barry told him. "But most internal hardware: navigation, coolant system, controls, are damaged or completely toast. The time drive can't be fixed."

"The time drive?" Thawne muttered. "That's not good."

"Can we make one from scratch?"

Both speedsters hesitated and spoke simultaneously. "Gideon-" then glared at each other.

The results weren't promising.

"Well, we've got two speedsters, a Kryptonian, and a Martian. It should hopefully take less time than three months," Kara said brightly, as everyone else tried to stomach the idea that they would be stuck together in the vanishing point for a whole month. Barry was already glaring at Thawne, who was studying the others with narrowed eyes.

Lex rubbed his hands together. "Better get started now, shall we?"

Rebuilding a time ship, even with their resources, was arduous. Two hours later, Ryan looked at the list of what needed to be fixed and looked ready to burst into tears. Maybe out of hopelessness, but Kara suspected he was having a bit of an existential crisis.

The two fighters, Sara and Kate, were frustrated at their own inability to help. They spent the time sparring each other instead, and Sara quickly became quite proficient at throwing a batarang.

J'onn acted as the peacekeeper, because between Lex, Kara, Barry, and Thawne, there was a lot of suppressed anger going around.

"Weld this for me, will you?" Lex said, tracing a seam of metal with his finger. Kara's eyes glowed red, and her heat vision seared the air around them. She moved to leave when he said, "There's a few more to do, don't fly off so fast."

Kara waited in the silence as he worked on assembling pieces. It wasn't an awkward silence, just a hostile one until she asked, with genuine curiosity, "Why do you hate Superman so much?"

"Me?" Lex hummed absent-mindedly. "People see him, you, Kryptonians, heroes, like gods. They admire you for people you aren't. There's nothing that makes you inherently different than anyone else except for your biology, yet you're worshipped like gods."

"We didn't choose to be this way," Kara replied.

"What does that change? You still have power that you did nothing to earn. You still have power that can be misused, minds that can be corrupted. After all you have faced, you're still unbearably naive."

"Maybe you're misinterpreting naivety for hope."

"At least learn to draw the line between the two."

"Trust me, I have," Kara said bitterly. "After all these years, I have. But your obsession for power, I don't understand."

"You wouldn't. How could you, when you have all the power in the world?" Lex sighed, pausing to examine the console he was working on. "Seeing aliens, seeing this Crisis...humanity is nothing. Humanity is weak, powerless. We're ants, and for what reason? Evolution. Luck. Circumstances that we can't control. I'm the only one rising above that."

Kara mulled it over, tapping her foot thoughtlessly against the ground. "You have a twisted view of the world."

"So do you, Kara Danvers. So do you."

. . .

Kate ducked under the swing of Sara's staff, but didn't block the kick in time and was sent sprawling to the ground. Sara's blurred face appeared above her, grinning crookedly as she extended a hand to pull Kate to her feet.

"Have to say, I'm a bit over my head for this one," Kate admitted. "Who taught you to fight?"

"A league of assassins," Sara said matter-of-factly. "I've gone against warriors from all across time for years, from samurai to an immortal. So don't feel bad about yourself."

"And according to Batman, I'm destined to get myself killed,"

"Good. I'll throw you a pity party once you've died. Then we'll be tied."

Kate frowned. "You've died?"

"Yep. Resurrected by a Lazarus pit - an immortality hot tub, basically."

"Immortality hot tub," Kate muttered. "We've got aliens, a multiverse, a speedster from the future, but immortality hot tub, that's a new one. I feel like the new kid just as much Ryan does."

"Yeah. Everyone has history together." Sara yawned, sitting down beside Kate. "The stories I could tell. You know the speedster, Thawne? He used a reality-rewriting spear to trap us in a fabricated world and almost cut out Kara's heart out to save a doppelganger of hers from an Earth ruled by Nazis."

"No comments."

Sara dug her staff into the ground. "That isn't much compared to what's happened to Barry. Thawne killed his mother."

Kate looked out to the debris floating around, grimacing. "Barry's kept a level head for all of that. I can't imagine how difficult it would be for me if Alice were here."

"Alice?"

"My crazy sister. She killed my step-mother and framed our father for it."

"Looks like your backstory is plenty tragic enough to be part of the club," Sara said, getting to her feet. "Why don't we go and check to see whether anything's blown up yet? You can terrorize Lex some more."

"Too tired. We gotta figure out how and where we're going to eat and sleep."

Sara waved a dismissive hand. "Time ship technology can fabricate just about everything."

"Alcohol?"

"Especially alcohol."

"Good. I need something to take my mind off the fact that the world already ended."

Sara smiled coyly, picking up her staff from where it was driven into the ground. "Cheers to that, sister."

Night in the Vanishing Point was unusual.

The blue glow that lit up the sky seemed to brighten and darken at random, locking them into a timeless cycle of night and day. As a result, their only indication of when to sleep were clocks and their own exhaustion.

Therefore, sleeping was only a matter of finding a dark, isolated corner and getting comfortable.

Eyes were closed, breathing steadied, thoughts trying to drift away from the constant reminder that everything they had ever known was dead and gone, incinerated. That it was their responsibility to bring everyone back, to restore the multiverse and what was lost.

The future was no longer set. Their success was not guaranteed, not predetermined.

Every decision was theirs to make and every consequence theirs to accept.

**End of Day 1**


	2. Chapter 2

**Day 2**

Barry awoke to someone crying out his name.

He sat up, eyes scanning the darkness, but there was nobody around.

Yet the voice sounded again, urgent and familiar, making his skin crawl and hands clench as he recognized it.

"Mom?" he muttered, climbing to his feet. It was her voice, her fear - but that wasn't possible unless he was finally going crazy. Or the speed force was calling out to him.

On a whim, he suited up and dashed outside, picking up more and more speed, breaking the sound barrier far away from the others so they wouldn't be woken up, but the portal to the speed force never appeared no matter how fast he ran.

Something was wrong with it.

Barry had assumed that the speed force was immune to the antimatter that had destroyed the multiverse, but perhaps it wasn't entirely true. After all, antimatter had seeped into the time stream already.

"Barry!"

He listened as carefully as he could, but the voice wasn't saying anything else. Just his name, over and over again, with a desperation akin to the end of a world. He slowed to a stop, defeated. No access to the speed force, no time stream, no multiverse - they really were trapped in the Vanishing Point. Their only hope was that the regular method of time travel, the time stream used by ships instead of speedsters, could still work to send them back in time.

Back in time to where?

They hadn't quite planned that out yet.

Barry sensed the negative speed force ripple again, in the distance, and found Thawne still working on the time ship. The other speedster, who seemed to be programming the navigation console, paid him no mind until Barry asked, rather sarcastically, "Don't you sleep?"

Thawne didn't even look in his direction. "With the speed force screaming in my head?"

After a pause, Barry acknowledged, "Fair point. You don't know what's causing it?"

"Of course I know what's causing it, and if I could fix it, I would already have done so." Thawne stepped away as a flurry of sparks shot from the console.

"Well I don't," Barry said, "and I'd like to know."

Thawne sighed. Using his suit's hologram projector, he pulled up a diagram of symbols - the same symbols Barry had been writing when he'd come out of the speed force.

The realization must have been visible on his face, because Thawne guessed, "You recognize these."

"Yes. Apparently I was writing them down after I spent six months stuck in the speed force."

"It's the language that programs all of time and reality. The coding of the universe, one might say." Thawne started scrolling through them. "Throughout every timeline, every iteration of history, every Earth, these symbols and this language will never change."

Yet there were obvious gaps in the stream of information displayed on the hologram, and Barry pointed them out. "The antimatter is destroying it?"

"At first, I feared that too." Thawne adjusted the hologram, and more symbols began flickering in and out. "Thankfully, that's not the case - the device that scans these readings is being blocked by antimatter. The Antimonitor can't destroy the speed force or the Vanishing Point, but he's trying to isolate the two, keep them disconnected from one another. If he succeeds, if he overpowers the speed force, then we would both lose our powers."

"For how long?" Barry asked nervously.

"Until the defeat of the Anti-Monitor, if it ever comes to pass."

The silence stretched on as Barry thought it over. "I don't hear screaming."

"You don't?"

"No. It's just my mother's voice calling my name, from far away. I can barely hear it." It was a subtle prod to the fragile peace they were keeping.

"Good for you. Which means the negative speed force will probably be lost before the positive one."

Barry knew he probably wouldn't get an answer, but asked anyway. "Who do you hear?"

"What?"

"Whenever the speed force talks to me, it's always my mother. Who do you hear, who does it appear as?"

Thawne turned to look at him for the first time, unable to figure out the motive behind the question. Finally, he muttered, "It always seems to change."

It wasn't an answer, and Barry took it as a dismissal. "I'll leave you to it, then, unless you need help?"

Thawne pointed at another console. "Can you rewire that? Some of the connections are fried."

Barry, surprised, pried off the panel to look at the workings. "Probably. I picked up a thing or two from Cisco."

"Cisco," Thawne muttered to himself. "What I wouldn't give to have him here right now."

Barry clenched his jaw at the reminder that Cisco, like the rest of his team and the entire multiverse, was dead. "Getting to fix a time ship would have been a dream come true for him."

"Of that, I have no doubt."

. . .

Kara awoke before morning had fully arrived, careful to collect her thoughts before towards the time ship. Her hearing already picked up both the speedsters, and a third heartbeat a way off.

She found Ryan sitting in the grass, staring at the floor with a blank look on his face. Though her approach had in no way been subtle, he was still startled when she sat down beside him.

"Didn't mean to scare you," she started by apologizing. "Is everything okay?"

He shook his head adamantly. "No, no, it's nothing."

Kara frowned, tilting her head to the side. "Are you sure?"

He hesitated.

"Because I would definitely be worried if everything was."

"I mean, nothing's alright, really," Ryan admitted. "The multiverse is gone, we're stuck here, the world's ended..."

Kara shook her head sadly. "I wasn't asking about the world. I was asking about you."

Ryan didn't seem too easy with both the sentiment and the attention. "Don't waste your concern on me."

"Don't belittle yourself," she chided. "You're no less important than the rest of us."

"How am I not less important?" Ryan demanded. "I can't even figure out why I'm here! I'm useless - I've got no background, no history, no place in this story. I'm not an assassin, a speedster, an alien, I'm not a genius or a superhero or anyone important."

"Don't you realize we all started out that way?" Kara said, gesturing to the Vanishing Point around them. "As no one? Then Flash got struck by lightning, my home planet was destroyed, Arrow and White Canary were stranded on a deadly island and left to fend for themselves. Ray Palmer - Atom - started out just like you and eventually became a member of a time-traveling team. We weren't born this way, why should you have to be?"

Ryan gave the briefest nod of the head. "I guess so."

Kara grinned, extending a hand to help him to his feet. "And you have to admit: surviving the end of the world is a pretty hardcore origin story."

Ryan finally allowed himself to smile, following her back to the ship.

Standing on the time ship's extended ramp, Kate and Luthor were already arguing.

"I don't need a shadow to stalk my every move!" Lex snapped. "I can't get anything done with you standing over my shoulder."

"I'm not leaving you unsupervised in a time ship for an entire day," Kate retorted. "You've proved time and time again that you can't be trusted - why should I give you any leeway now?"

"Because I'm trying to help," Lex said patiently.

"Help?" Kate replied. "Oh, I suppose you helped the Monitor when he asked, right? And stealing the book and murdering Supermen across the multiverse can be overlooked?"

"The world hadn't ended then."

"Yet you still escaped your bonds the moment I stopped watching you just yesterday."

"Don't blame that on me!" Lex protested. "That was all Eobard."

"Amazing," Kara grumbled as she joined them. "The two supervillains are already on a first-name basis. This is going to be a great week. Where's Barry?"

Kate pointed to the ship. "Working in the bridge."

She tracked the speedster down, who was currently sitting on the ground fixing a ventilation pipe. "A word, Barry?"

"Sure." Barry jumped to his feet to look her in the eye. "What's up?"

Kara looked down the hallway without thinking. "I need to know whether you trust Thawne not to betray us."

Barry only looked troubled as he thought it through. "I don't know. He's not unreasonable like Luthor is, but he makes up for that by being manipulative. He does whatever he needs to, kills exactly who he has to, to get what he wants. I don't think he'll betray us now - not when he needs us to survive."

Kara nodded solemnly. "I see. Let me know if anything arises."

"I will."

The rest of the day settled into a routine: Lex, Thawne, and Ryan, with the help of Kara's strength and heat vision, fixed the more specialized features of the ship while J'onn and Barry collected the required components. Kate and Sara supervised construction and kept tabs on all they had finished and what still needed fixing.

After a pointless five-minute argument, it was decided that Barry's Gideon would be installed into the ship, as none of them trusted Thawne not to hijack the ship in some manner or another. Barry doubted that it would have made any difference, as Thawne could probably still take over whether it was his A.I. controlling it or not.

And the question came up eventually: "Once we've fixed the time ship, where will we go?"

Kara decided over the comms, "We'll plan it over this evening, when we're not all on separate sides of the Vanishing Point."

Nobody argued, and so it was decided.

Without planning or organization, all eight of them found themselves adapting schedules where neither Kara and Lex or Barry and Thawne would have to work with one another. J'onn took to collection components for Thawne, as Barry did for Lex.

They found that much less arguing came that way.

But by the time it came to halt efforts as 'night' fell, nerves were frayed and fatigue set in. Kate and Lex were back to arguing again, as she had started shadowing him once he'd stopped working on the ship. J'onn kept an eye out to make sure a punch wasn't thrown.

They gathered in the clearing by the ship to discuss how they would stop Crisis once the ship was fixed.

Kara made the first suggestion: "We go back and capture Harbinger before she can kill the Monitor."

Barry shook his head. "We might not be able to overpower her, or the Monitor can corrupt Pariah or someone else instead."

"Even if it works, we've got no good way of restoring the lost Earths," Kate added. "It's too risky to use the book."

"Warn our past selves what will happen?"

"If you want to cause anachronisms to be spread throughout all of time."

"Destroy the anti-matter cannon on Earth-1?"

"Another will be rebuilt somewhere else."

"What about stopping Crisis before it starts?" Barry put in. "One iteration of Crisis was supposed to happen in 2024, but it was moved up."

Thawne finally spoke up. "Even I can't predict such changes to the timeline. You're all thinking too small, too recently. Keep trying."

As if their efforts were amusing him.

"Wait," Barry cut in. "You know how to fix this?"

"Of course I do. But if I'm not the one to come up with the idea, then revealing it could cause further changes to the timeline."

"Nobody cares about the timeline," Sara burst out. "There is no timeline, not anymore. It's gone, and if you ever want to fix it, then tell us how."

"And risk upsetting the circumstances that lead to the defeat of the Anti-Monitor?" Thawne snapped. "Timeline changes are unpredictable, random - based on chance. You would have me risk the revival of the entire multiverse by telling you sooner than it's supposed to happen?"

"There is no 'supposed to'," Sara shot back. "We're not following an exact timeline anymore, we're forging our own. Fate is in our hands now."

Thawne's voice dropped down to patience. "No. Specific events need to happen for our success - I don't know them all, but this I'm certain. The answer isn't meant to be revealed by me."

"Sara, he's right," Barry said reluctantly. "Thawne knows more about time travel than any of us."

"About speedster time travel," Sara said. "The rules are different here."

"Not inherently so."

"I agree with Sara," Kate said, standing beside Sara. "The multiverse is gone. We should be using whatever means necessary to get it back."

Thawne refused to change his mind. "I won't jeopardize our chance before it's already begun."

"Really?" Sara mocked, voice rising in anger. "Three years ago you were killing left and right to rewrite all of reality - now you're playing it honorable?"

"Sara," Barry warned.

"Don't you start on me too, Barry," Sara growled. "Like you don't break time travel rules more than he does - remember Flashpoint?"

"We may have made mistakes in the past," Thawne said softly, stepping forward to look Sara dead in the eyes, "but at least we don't bumble around history, breaking timelines left and right, and call it heroic."

To her credit, the first punch wasn't Sara's - it was Kate's, who was quick to defend her new friend. Thawne, smart enough to see it coming and fast enough to dodge, sent her tumbling back in a burst of red lightning.

Unfortunately for him, Kara didn't like seeing her friends get punched. And the Kryptonian was plenty fast enough to keep up with a speedster - and that's exactly what she did.

Lex watched as Kara leapt into the air and commented, "A Kryptonian versus a speedster. Now that's an interesting fight to watch. I have to say, I'm with Supergirl on this one."

Ryan was the only one distressed as he watched Kara dodged a lightning strike, crying out, "Wait! Stop!"

"Don't worry about it," Barry told him, pulling Ryan back before he could be hit with a stray blast, and held out a bucket filled with- "Popcorn?"

"What?" Ryan exclaimed. "You aren't going to help Supergirl?"

Barry shrugged nonchalantly. "Nah. It's Thawne I'm more concerned for, and I'm not going to pass up on the chance to watch him put back in his place for once."

Kate and Sara, once they decided that the danger had passed, finally came back to the group. "Can't say I'm accustomed to someone else fighting my battles, but I'm not going to pass up on the opportunity." Sara grabbed a handful of popcorn.

Kara, unable to use her heat vision for fear of taking the fight too far, was limited to dodging around. Ever so often, she'd swing a punch and hit more than miss, only to be electrocuted by Thawne's lightning.

She lunged at him, taking to the air, only for him to phase right through her. After more failed attempts to land a hit, Kara slammed her palms together.

The shockwave knocked all of them right off balance, and Thawne was blasted backward and into a wall.

Kara hauled him to his feet and unceremoniously dropped him in front of Sara. "Here you go."

Sara grinned. "Got a chance to express all your feelings?"

Kara shot a rather uncharacteristic look of contempt at the speedster, still struggling to get to his feet. "Not quite."

"Don't worry. If he doesn't tell us how to fix this mess, you can always keep at it." Sara turned to Thawne, looking at him expectantly. "Feel like telling us now? Or should I let Kara get a few more punches in?"

Thawne coughed, blood pooling at the corner of his mouth. After a moment's pause, he recovered enough to say, "Fine. Let's dig ourselves into a hole we can't get out of, since you want to know so badly. The Anti-Monitor at the dawn of time. That's where we must go to defeat him."

"The dawn of time?" Barry echoed in shock. "Why there?"

"That's where the Anti-Monitor is now. Not only to ensure his own creation, but to destroy the multiverse before it is born. If we defeat him there, we can prevent the existence of both the Anti-Monitor and Monitor and therefore stop Crisis from ever coming to pass."

Silence hung over the seven of them. Sara spoke first. "That's a solid plan. And if we're wrong about this, you can always say, 'I told you so'."

"I'll keep that in mind," Thawne said, and there was no trace of humor in his voice.

So the decision was made and they all went their separate ways for the evening, as to prevent any more fighting. Fixing the ship became their only goal, their only plan, as there was no predicting what they would find at the dawn of time.

By estimates, fixing the ship would take one week. One week, they had to wait before the fate of the multiverse was decided.

**End of Day 2**


	3. Chapter 3

**Day 3-7**

Construction on the ship continued, as carefully and rapidly as possible. They were making good progress - less than a week remained before the ship would be ready to go.

And then, they would go all the way back to the dawn of time and end this Crisis before it even started.

As hard as it was to come to terms with, Kara had to admit that having Lex with them was a huge help. Without him and Thawne, it would have taken them over two months, if not more.

But she couldn't ignore Thawne's warning. Were they really doing the right thing by rushing off to the dawn of time without any information, without whatever inciting factor fated to lead them there in the original timeline?

Still, she had no choice but to push it out of her mind.

. .

Their days took on a schedule - wake up, eat, work on the ship until lunch, eat, work on the ship until dinner, eat, and fool around for an hour until they fell asleep at one point or another. Fooling around consisted of a variety of things - drinking, telling stories, sparring, playing card games, anything that worked as a distraction.

On their fourth day in the Vanishing Point, all eight of them gathered around to spectate the first official chess match between Lex and Thawne. Sides were taken, of course - Barry and Kara had a lengthy argument over which of their respective supervillains were smarter, which ended up with, ironically, Barry taking Thawne's side and Kara taking Lex's just to prove their points.

Smug looks were exchanged whenever pieces were eliminated.

Even a close look at the board seemed to suggest that both sides were even, but Lex's hands were clenched while Thawne looked as calm as ever. And indeed, when pieces dwindled down and the endgames came to play, Lex's King was toppled.

"Congratulations," Lex said stiffly as they shook hands.

Barry grinned at Kara, who crossed her arms and shot him a playful, albeit grumpy, look.

A few other suggestions for entertainment were bounced around: Lex, harboring a grudge, suggested a race between the two speedsters and got two identical unamused glares in return.

By the time that the idea caught, Thawne had already vanished.

On their fifth day, the six paragons had run out of stories to tell. Thawne and Lex generally opted out of any 'social' gatherings, as otherwise, tempers didn't remain subdued for long. Although no more fights had broken out, they'd come awfully close a few times. Most notably was when Lex brought up Lena simply for the purpose of antagonizing Kara - Barry had to take her aside while Kate practically dragged Lex away.

"I know it's hard," Barry told her, sitting in one of the time ship's chairs. "I can't look at Thawne without wanting to punch him in the face, too. But we have to remember our priorities."

"Save the world first, deal with grievances later," Kara recited dully. "So much easier said than done. The thing is, he's right. I never should have kept my identity secret from Lena for so long. It was selfish of me."

Barry smiled sadly, shaking his head. "Iris forgave me after she found out. We had been best friends since childhood and I kept my identity as the Flash from her for months." Barry reassured her. "Give Lena time. She'll forgive you."

Kara nodded leaning back to look around at the ship. "I really thought the end of the world would put things into perspective, but it really doesn't. It just makes me realize that we could die and I'd never see any of my friends again. I might never get to make things right."

"That's what we all have to live with," Barry said, getting to his feet. "We'll stop Crisis, I know it. For now, just ignore Lex as best you can."

"I'll try."

That night, boredom was setting in. Coupled with the anticipation of their coming mission, nobody could sit still. Kate and Sara were back to sparring, the clack of their weapons echoing across the clearing they'd made their headquarters. Thawne and Lex worked on the ship as always, Ryan had already passed out, and Barry and Kara were singing an improvised version of "Super Friend" as J'onn listened.

"Sing Moon River again," Barry pleaded.

"Can't," Kara yawned. "Forgot the lyrics."

Barry squinted his eyes suspiciously. "Really?"

"No, not really, but I'm tired."

"Lucky you." Barry darted in circles around her, lighting up the ground in orange. "Only two more days until the ship is ready. I really should be dreading it, but I can't wait to get off this floating rock and actually do something."

"Amen," Kara mumbled. "I'm going to get a drink."

"I'll come," Barry decided, "if you don't mind."

J'onn found out two hours later that the drunken version of "Super Friend" was unquestionably worse than the original.

Restlessness brought vigor to their efforts in fixing the ship, as it was nearing completion. Lex and Ryan were fine-tuning the navigation console as Thawne finished the time drive and synced Gideon with the ship's workings. Barry, who was in charge of scavenging parts for the day, found himself with little to do.

It was almost dusk when Ryan declared the ship finished. Barry and Kate wanted to leave immediately, but Kara, who at that point had become the unofficial leader, knew that wasn't a good idea. Even after a successful test flight around the Vanishing Point, most of them were tired and exhausted.

And so they resolved to wait until the following morning.

Kara was walking throughout the ship, running superfluous reparations of her own when the tell-tale crackle of lightning found her face-to-face with Thawne. "What?" she asked, keeping any accusation out of her voice.

"If we leave for the dawn of time tomorrow, we won't succeed." There was genuine worry in Thawne's voice, which was altogether more unsettling than the assertion itself. "You need to reconsider, Kara, and convince the others."

"We've already made a decision," she said. "My input won't change that-neither will yours."

"It doesn't trouble you at all?" he demanded, stepping forward. "That we are changing the fate of everything that exists by forging our own timeline? We will not survive, I can promise you that."

"And I can trust neither your word nor your motivations," Kara said quietly, "considering you were helping _Nazis _the last I saw you. Even if I were inclined to try and convince the others to wait, they have made up their minds."

"I helped the Earth-X Reich for the same reason I'm trying to prevent the eight of us from wasting our chance at restoring the multiverse," Thawne said. "Because it was _necessary. _Both to the timeline and the fate of worlds. We are fated to stop Crisis just like the Reich was fated to lose, but leaving now will disrupt that reality and threaten the balance of the entire multiverse. Are you willing to take that chance?"

"Yes," Kara said simply. "Yes, I am. We all are."

Thawne looked at her for a long moment, then bowed his head. "Very well."

He darted off in another ripple of lightning, leaving her to think in silence.

. . .

The rest of the evening toed the line between celebratory and nerve-wracking, as there was nothing to do but wait and hope for the best. There were too many unknowns for a viable plan to be made, as they didn't know what awaited them at the dawn of time or even whether anti-matter had corrupted the time stream.

So they feared, they talked, and they waited.

**End of Day 7**


	4. Chapter 4

**Day 8**

They all regrouped in the time ship the next day, which was promptly named "Waverider" by Sara to get past any reference problems. Nobody argued when she took the pilot's chair and turned to address them, face grim.

"As we don't know what we're dealing with, we have to be prepared for anything," she said. "Whatever rivalries, whatever hatred, whatever reservations we have with each other cannot interfere, not anymore. We have two goals: restore the multiverse and defeat the Anti-Monitor, and everyone needs to be prepared to do whatever it takes."

"Whatever it takes," Kate promised.

"We owe it to everyone we lost," Barry said. "And to Oliver."

And with that, the Waverider lifted off and took to the dawn of time.

Breaths were held for the jump into the timestream, and Sara faced the rippling green tunnel with wariness. Nothing seemed off - until the faintest white slice of light cut across the stream before vanishing.

"Anti-matter," Thawne muttered.

"That's not very much," Barry countered. "Certainly not enough to stop us."

"It will get worse," Thawne promised, and the calmness in his voice was the worse part.

Gideon's voice echoed throughout the bridge. "Setting a course for the dawn of time."

At first, everything went fine. The anti-matter clumps were few and far between, looming ominously and nothing more. As if only there to stop them from settling into comfort.

Until Ryan broke the burgeoning conversations with, "It's increasing."

Thawne nodded confirmation, eyes fixed straight ahead. "The closer we get to the dawn of time, the more anti-matter will be present in the time stream. The Anti-Monitor's presence is the catalyst, but whether it will be enough to stop the ship, I don't know."

As if to respond to his statement, the ship gave the barest shudder.

"What was that?" Kate asked warily.

Gideon's voice bore absolutely no panic. "It appears anti-matter is striking the ship."

Again, a thin line of anti-matter streaked towards them, only to dissolve into the aether. The longer they traveled, the more often they struck the ship, and each shudder grew more prevalent every time.

"Sara," Thawne warned. "We need to consider turning back before the ship is damaged."

"Can we make it?" Ryan asked.

Sara, Barry, and Thawne spoke at once, asking: "Gideon?" - before glaring at each other.

"Calculations inconclusive."

"Whatever it takes," Sara repeated, and picked up speed.

The walls of the time stream faded from green to white, consumed by anti-matter, and each attack on the ship grew in strength. Sara found herself dodging them entirely, swinging the ship around.

"Gideon, shields?"

"The ship's shields are useless against anti-matter."

"'Course they are," Sara muttered,

A major blast struck the ship, shaking the bridge around them. The lights flickered on and off, and a red light appeared on the navigation console. Sara was too busy navigating the Waverider around another tendril of light to acknowledge it, and two more red lights appeared when the ship was hit again.

The entire ship shook with the force of a blast, sparks flying and the walls rumbling. The rest of them could do nothing but clench the harnesses that kept them in place as the Waverider surged sideways, the unsteady hum of the engines escalating into a roar.

"There's a pattern to the anti-matter strikes!" Lex yelled over the ruckus.

"I can't-"

"Left!" Ryan screamed.

The ship flew out of control, spinning in dizzying circles. Barry phased through his harness and took over as pilot, using his enhanced reflexes to avoid the anti-matter and stabilize the Waverider. The ship, though, had already been damaged. It was too slow to respond as another blast hit, and he was flung sideways by the impact.

Barry saw with fading vision as a final anti-matter strike tore through the viewing port, splitting the Waverider in half.

. . .

Someone was saying his name.

Barry opened his eyes to find himself still in the ship, albeit with a splitting headache. Sitting up in a daze, he found the ship just as it was when he'd passed out. Anti-matter was splitting the bridge in half, unmoving and dead in the air.

Sara's look of panic was still frozen on her face, the glass shards from the broken window hadn't yet hit the ground, and the Waverider had grown as silent as death.

Thawne stepped back to let him stand up.

"Flashtime," Barry breathed.

Thawne nodded, surveying the bridge with an alarming resignation. "Anti-matter is tearing the ship apart. It's already too late."

"Well, how do we get rid of it?" Barry asked, looking at him expectantly.

Thawne shook his head, turning away. "I don't know."

"What?" Barry exclaimed. "What you mean, you don't know? What are we going to do?"

Silence.

Barry turned to the white anti-matter particles. A huge lightning-like bolt had shattered the glass of the viewing port and sliced right through both Sara's seat and Gideon's drive.

She had been moved to the last empty seat, but anti-matter hovered dangerously close to Lex and Kara. The instant they left flashtime, the entire ship would be broken into pieces and they would all be consumed by anti-matter. As the last ones left, their deaths would truly be the end of all worlds.

"I can't go back in time," Thawne said. "The negative speed force is too far gone-I can barely stay in flashtime as it is. You have to try to travel back and stop this. It's the only option."

Barry nodded. He took off, running circles around the empty corridors, picking up speed with every lap. But he could feel the speed force falter as he ran. Soon, it gave out completely, and he had to grab the last of its energy to keep himself in flashtime.

He promptly crashed into a wall.

He tried again. And again. And again.

"Barry, you can't."

"No," Barry said, stepping back as he shook his head. "No, there has to be a way." He tried again, and barely made it back to the bridge before crashing.

"There's nothing!" Thawne snapped. "There's no time traveling, there's no fixing this! There's nothing we can do to affect anti-matter in any way, never mind get rid of it!"

"The entire multiverse dies the moment we leave flashtime!" Barry yelled. His strength gave out, and he slumped against the wall, sitting down to lean his head in his hands.

"I know," Thawne whispered. "I know. I'm trying to find a solution. But anti-matter dissolves everything it touches. There's nothing that can affect it - speedsters can't even phase through it without dissolving like everything else. Even with all the worlds' resources, there's nothing I can make that could get rid of anti-matter."

Something occurred to Barry. He stood up and walked to the Waverider's viewing port, careful to avoid the glass and anti-matter as he peered into the time stream beyond. "We're in between timelines. If we manage to fall through the walls of the time stream, we'll land in the past and buy ourselves some time."

Thawne stopped beside him. "It's too late. Anti-matter is surrounding it. That might have been a viable option when we first entered the time stream-"

"-when it was still green-" Barry surmised.

"-but not anymore."

"Can we fix the jump ship to travel back? To evacuate everyone to the Vanishing Point?"

"It's a possibility."

They found it torn apart by anti-matter.

Consulting everyone returned nothing. Even Lex was stumped, only circling through useless options before slumping into exhaustion.

An hour later, and there was still nothing.

"What are we missing?" Barry muttered to himself from where he sat against the wall, trying to conserve energy.

"Nothing," Thawne told him. "I've taken stock of everything on the ship. "There's nothing."

"There's a solution somewhere. You always had an answer for everything."

Thawne was back to studying holograms, shifting through information tirelessly, searching for an option. "Not anymore."

"Don't say that. I might start panicking."

He didn't look up. "Really? And I thought you'd get used to facing the end of the world."

"I always had options, then. Things I didn't want to resort to, like time traveling. Now, I'd do anything for that chance."

Thawne scoffed. "Sorry for doubting your "anything". You and your friends always went to such ridiculous lengths to avoid doing anything that could be seen as immoral."

"I'd kill you without a second thought if it meant saving the multiverse."

"That's new."

"Desperate times."

The silence stretched on again, a ticking clock of a reminder that they were running out of time.

. . .

Growing more exhausted by the minute, Barry eventually asked, "What are you doing?"

Thawne was still analyzing the speed force symbols, but Barry didn't know what he was expecting to accomplish.

"I'm reading the timeline-or at least what I can pick up of it."

"And?"

"The gaps are throwing me off, so I'm writing an algorithm that should predict the missing symbols and fill in the gaps. If that works, then I can find out exactly what course of action we take."

"And if there's none?"

"Then the multiverse dies."

"So we hope there's a way out."

Thawne sighed, pausing for the first time that hour. "Barry, I won't finish the algorithm in time."

Barry looked up sharply. "What? Then why are you writing it?"

There was alarming distress in Thawne's voice when he sat down. "Because there's no other option. I don't know what else to do."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Not if you can't read speed force symbols. But you can drop out of flashtime, conserve your energy. I'll bring you back if I run out of time."

"You want me to drop out of flashtime?" Barry asked incredulously. "What, so I can't stop you if you decide to let the world end?"

"Do you really think I want the multiverse to die?" Thawne demanded. "I have people I need to save too, and I don't even know that I can anymore. You being here is wasting energy-only one of us needs to stay in flashtime for the ship to remain intact."

Barry sighed, puzzling it over. "Eobard, you're asking me to trust you with the fate of the entire multiverse."

"I know. But I fail, you'll still have one more chance."

The silence stretched, deafening in the silence of the Waverider. Barry stared at a piece of floating glass as he tried to muster the courage to slip out of flashtime, knowing there was a good chance he'd wake up alone or not at all.

But in the end, he knew what the smarter option was and let go of his speed.

. . .

He woke up to silence.

Thawne had fallen against the wall beside him, barely conscious. "I didn't..."-he took a shuddering breath-"I didn't succeed. You have to-"

He didn't finish before stumbling to the floor. Barry kept a hold of his arm, knowing he was the only one keeping Eobard in flashtime. "Have to what?" he demanded, but it was too late.

Barry found himself standing in the silence of the Waverider, accompanied only by the white glow of the lightning-strike of anti-matter ready to end the world the moment he faltered.

Haunted by a ticking clock and with no idea what to do, Barry could only stumble blindly around the Waverider. Already exhaustion was weighing him down, and the speed force had grown silent.

He had no choice but to attempt to travel through time again, running in agonizing circles all too aware that he was using up too much of the multiverse's time.

_Faster, faster, faster._

There's wasn't enough speed force left. Barry could only run with his naive hope that a solution would present itself. That he would have a chance to save the world, floating in the pale light of the time stream.

Nothing.

He collapsed in the bridge, strength and vision fading as his speed force wavered. He held on to his energy, held on to the multiverse until his eyes closed and he started drifting off.

_No._

Words echoed around his head, fragments of memories surfacing in his wavering consciousness. His mother's death, STAR Labs exploding, running for the first time. Phasing, time-traveling, seeing Earth 2, Flashpoint...of fearing his own death, predetermined by that article that had shaped so much of his life.

He hadn't died. He hadn't died because another Earth's Flash had stolen his speed and sacrificed himself.

_He stole my speed..._

Barry's eyes snapped open.

It took all of his effort to sit up, and even more so to stand. Somehow, he managed to get to Eobard, who was still passed out from exhaustion.

Thawne might have been unconscious, but his speed force was not.

In the same way that Earth 90's Flash had stolen his powers, Barry stole Thawne's. Some instinct led him to overpower the negative speed force, to tame it until it was his to command. Lightning flickered around him, burning the edge of his fingertips in a rush of energy that left him breathless and dizzy.

When he stood up and ran, the lightning that flickered around him glowed both yellow and red.

He circled the ship, picking up speed with every lap. Some part of him waited for his powers to falter, but they did not. Not even when he broke the space-time barrier and the hallways of the Waverider faded to the familiar blue of the time stream.

He'd barely run at all before coming upon a barrier of anti-matter. Just in time, he threw himself clear and crashed into the floor of the bridge of five minutes ago.

Eight stares of varying surprise greeted him as he picked himself up. His voice was equally distorted by speed and panic when he yelled, "We have to turn back!"

"Barry?" Sara asked incredulously, half-turned from the pilot's seat.

A small bolt of anti-matter struck the ship, leaving nothing more than a shudder of the ship around them.

"We don't make it!" His powers were slipping. If he didn't get back to his own time, he'd be stuck in the past. "Don't continue on! We don't make it!"

The rest was a blur: running back to his own time, passing out, the Waverider shaking as Sara yelled.

Then nothing.

. . .

Sara had yanked the controls sideways and turned them around, back towards the Vanishing Point. "Someone get Barry off the floor."

Kara lifted her harness to pick him up from where he had passed out, sitting him back in his seat. His head tilted sideways, and he did not wake up.

The anti-matter wouldn't let them go easily. Its strikes weakened over time, but not before the power had flickered out and fuel tank split. They watched the gauge with wary eyes, and Gideon was finally presented with a question she could answer: "Do we have enough fuel reserves to make it back to the Vanishing Point?"

"Not likely. Judging by the leak we will fall short."

"Shut off all non-critical systems." She turned to them grimly. "We have to conserve fuel."

"Nobody's going to talk about what just happened?" Ryan breathed. "There were two Flashes!"

"Later," Thawne said, hands clenched. "We're still not going to make it, are we?"

Sara spoke through gritted teeth, fully focused on piloting the damaged ship. "I don't know."

As it turned out, they came so close.

The ship's engines were flickering out, shaking the ship around them. "We aren't going to make it!" Ryan yelled.

"We have to-" Sara's voice was drowned out by the groan of metal. "-blow the cargo bay door!"

"She's right! The pressure change will give us the momentum we need!"

"None of us can withstand the pressure!" Lex argued.

"I can," Kara said, leaping out of her seat. "Talk me through it over comms."

"Wait!-" Sara's protest came too late.

Kara ran down the steps and into the cargo bay, quickly sealing the door and locking herself in.

Sara was still arguing. "You may have super strength, but the lack of oxygen will kill you!"

"I'll hold my breath," Kara said, determined. "Who else, but me? If we wait too long, the ship will slow down and we'll lose our momentum."

"Kara, don't!"

She pulled the lever.

The door was ripped open by the escaping air, sucking everything out. Kara held on to the wall for her life as the ship lurched forward, dragged backward by the force alone.

Against her will, she took a breath and found no oxygen left for her to breathe. Her fingers slipped as her vision dimmed, and she fell to the floor before blacking out.

Back on the bridge, they were monitoring the air pressure. It had equalized before Kara could be sucked out, but she was still unconscious without oxygen. "We're almost there," Sara muttered. "Come on, Kara!"

No movement from her.

None of them could go in there without facing oxygen deprivation as well, and the airlock was too slow to compensate. They couldn't help her.

Lex's seat was empty.

Just as the Waverider broke free of the time stream and spiraled towards the Vanishing Point, Lex came back sporting his green and purple armor and carrying Kara with him.

"Suit's got an oxygen supply," he reasoned.

"Where did you even-"

"I held the Book of Destiny. Do you really think I'd leave myself defenseless?"

"We're not clear yet," Sara warned as the ship started descending. Without fuel, the Waverider was dead in the air and falling fast. The Vanishing Point's gravity, however unstable, was pulling their ship down at increasingly deadly speeds.

It would have been an unsatisfactory end, for them to die dashed to pieces in a crash landing. Sara braced for impact and found herself standing on solid ground, back at the base they'd made their headquarters as her ship streaked down from the sky.

She turned around in confusion to find all seven of them standing behind her, in similar states of confusion as they watched the Waverider plummet from the safety of the ground of the Vanishing Point.

"You're welcome," Thawne said as the ship exploded behind him.

. . .

They dumped Barry in their salvaged med-bay and went to explore the wreck. Thawne brought them up to speed on what had been erased when Barry traveled back in time, and the story didn't do anything to lift their spirits.

The Waverider had been reduced to a pile of scrap metal. Not even the time drive was intact, and Sara doubted that any of them would've survived had Thawne not gotten them out.

"I suppose I now get to say, "I told you so."

Sara didn't argue as she used her foot to push aside a broken harness.

Ryan, concerned as always, was the first to ask, "What are we going to do?"

Silence greeted his words.

"We can't try again," Thawne said. "The time stream was our only option."

"Could we build something to protect the ship from anti-matter?" Kara asked. "A shield, so that we can make it to the dawn of time?"

"No," Lex said flatly. "Nothing in this place exists that can resist anti-matter."

"Because all matter, regardless of how it's manipulated, will be erased upon contact," Thawne continued. "The speed force has stabilized to some degree, but time travel is still limited for speedsters."

"So there's no way to get to the dawn of time? There's nothing to be done?" Kate asked.

Thawne was the first to shake his head and walk away, leaving them to stand among the ruins of their attempted escape. "Nothing."

It was a sobering thought to hold on to.

**End of Day 8**


End file.
